All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Book, book, book

autarch on 2002-07-23T22:18:09

So I've gotten real excited about promoting the book and have managed to get it listed on at least one additional online bookstore. Fortunately, this is the one we're partnering with, so I was able to make the book's site live too, which is cool.

It's really fun going to various web stores and seeing the book listed. It'll be even better to actually hold a copy in my hands though ;)

Consarnit

koschei on 2002-07-24T01:24:36

Another book to buy.

I wonder if anyone's ever thought about how much they support the development of programs when they buy the authors' books. Or indeed, whether it helps at all. /me looks at shelf containing books by Bunce, gnat, Lamport, Conway and others.

I've always wondered how much people get from their books.

Re:Consarnit

autarch on 2002-07-24T03:07:04

There's two ways it helps.

1. Direct financial reward. We got an advance and we split the royalties. Neither of these are anything near enough to live on, but OTOH they're not pocket change either.

2. Indirect help. Buying the book helps make Mason succesful. Mason's success has helped me personally, in that it's made it possible for me to get work more easily.

For example, one place for whom I am currently doing contracting work contacted me because I am on the Mason core team.

If the book is successful then that probably means that use of Mason will increase, which will help me get more work, which means I'll be able to work on Mason.

Book bling bling

Fletch on 2002-07-24T02:00:11

Depends (on the publisher, the number of authors, yadda yadda yadda). I contributed 6 chapters to one of those Sams X Unleashed bricks (on Java *gasp*; I was young . . .) and got $0.25 per $50 book.

availability?

kellan on 2002-09-10T22:13:49

So I know the answer to "When will it be available? "is always "When its done", and the website says Oct 2002. But as I'm currently looking around at perl web frameworks for a "throw-away-version-one-and-rewrite" of a complex web app, it would be great if the book was online before then. :)

I've always been turned off by Mason's embedded style of execution, but reading Design Issues with Mason makes it seem interesting again.

Re:availability?

autarch on 2002-09-10T23:08:32

It probably won't be available online until sometime after it's published, I'd guess. We need to come up with a way to turn the source (a slightly tweaked POD called "pseudo-POD" invented by ORA) into decent HTML. This will most likely be non-trivial and painful.

I'm afraid mid-October is likely to be the earliest anyone will be able to read it. Sorry.

Re:availability?

autarch on 2002-09-10T23:12:25

BTW, thanks for your work on protest.net. It's a cool site. I myself have been doing animal rights activism for the past six years and I'm a big supporter (though not too active :( ) of other leftist social movements.

Unrelatedly, the "design issues with Mason" essay has been reworked and expanded as a chapter in the book.

Re:availability?

kellan on 2002-09-14T00:46:05

Thanks for the feedback. Actually we've been feeling guilty about sort of orphaning the site these last couple of years as a huge amount of the collectives effort has gotten sucked into Indymedia. But hopefully some new code, that really draws on the support of the community (which was always the idea) will help. I look forward to the book.